Since almost ten years I have used a simple boston matrix as basis for my fundamental thinking, but have over the last couple of weeks realised it’s time to re-think!

The loyal and faithful boston matrix we have based so many decision on and so much of our thinking dates back to 2002 and my early days at Statkraft (Norway’s largest electricity generator – and the largest provider of renewable energy in Europe).

The matrix assesses the dimensions of Commodity (Operationally important) vs Differentiating (Business-strategic and critical)
and strategic importance as in Internal (Core business) vs Outsourced (Non-core business). It displays like this:

Over the last couple of weeks I have tried to squeeze out the essences and business value of social collaboration, also referred to as Web 2.0. Eneterprise 2.0 or lately as The Social Organisation as it's coined in the very readable book with the same name (“The Social Organisation” by Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald).

Social media tools and capabilities will with little doubt enable us to gain more business value from unstructured processes and data. Probably also motivate for more business processes to be handled in an unstructured social setting, rather than more traditionally with structured processes, for better and more flexible use of the organisation and any employee or resource contributing. I believe this first and foremost should be used to strengthen a company’s competitive capabilities.

I now understand I have to re-think and stronger become influenced by an un-linear and un-structured paradigm. In my first attempt to find a new guiding basis I just mixed the two strong drivers of Commodity vs Differentiating and Structure vs Unstructured. This look something like this:

In reality I can’t see why anyone should want to be in the lower left quadrant of this boston matrix, so I then redraw and came up with the following model:

I know this is only initial thinking and will need more work, but if you have comments or thoughts pleas let me know!!